10x10 #3 - Marginal Gains

in 2003, Dave Brailsford became the Performance Director of the Great Britain Cycling team. In 2004 they had their best Olympic medal haul since 1908. The Olympics in 2008 and 2012 were even better. Why?

His simple philosophy on improving performance which he called 'marginal gains' – examine everything that might have an effect on performance and improve each by just 1%. Each improvement may seem trivial, but the cumulative effect can be huge.

If we apply the same rule to our learning (and teaching) what might the effect of marginal gains mean to a student's performance and life chances?

That's worth thinking about.

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Adrian is the founder and Managing Director of the internationally recognized Imagine Education consultancy partnership. Adrian’s expertise is in ICT and education, pre-service teacher training and innovative curriculum design. He has extensive management experience within UK schools, and was formerly a research fellow at Bristol University.